Ammianus Marcellinus

Ammianus Marcellinus , c.330-c.400, Roman historian, b. Antioch. After retiring from a successful military career, he wrote a history of the Roman Empire as a sequel to that of Tacitus, his model. The history, in 31 books, covered the years from AD 96 to 378; only Books XIV-XXXI, covering the years AD 353-78, survive. Though written in an extremely rhetorical style, this reliable and impartial history is praised not only for its coverage of military events, but for detailed information concerning economic, administrative, and social history, biographical information about the various emperors, and tolerant descriptions of foreign cultures. Although a pagan and an admirer of Julian the Apostate, Ammianus was able to write about Christianity without prejudice.

Bibliography: See E. A. Thompson, Historical Work of Ammianus Marcellinus (1947); Ammianus Marcellinus (his work tr. by J. C. Rolfe 1935, repr. 1963); R. Syme, Ammianus and the Historia Augusta (1968).

Ammianus Marcellinus. Last of the great Roman historians (c. AD 330–c.390), although by birth a Greek and a native of Syrian Antioch. He is remembered by Celticists for his admiring but cautious descriptions of the Gauls, especially the tall, beautiful Gaulish women whose ‘huge snowy arms’ could strike like catapults when raised in anger. English translation in the Loeb Classical Library, Ammianus Marcellinus (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1935–9).

Attacotti A British tribe or people. They seem to have inhabited a corner of north‐western Britain, most probably the Outer Hebrides. They are mentioned only in late Roman sources such as Ammianus Marcellinus and St Jerome, amongst whom they had a reputation for savagery.